All joking aside. Kobe thinks this team can contend for a title now. You can see the excitement on his face after the portland game.

Quote:

"We are a championship-caliber team," Bryant said. "I've never understood the talk about us not being a contender. I've never understood it from the start of the season until now. You have myself, you have Andrew (Bynum) and you have Pau. Who has three players like that on one roster? And then you have Metta (World Peace) and you have (Matt) Barnes. "So I hear all this talk and all these conversations and here we are two games out of the second seed in the Western Conference despite our struggles on the road and with the new coaching staff and the new system and new personnel. I always believed we were contenders but we just had to be quiet about it."

You can see that with a "small trade" this team quickly became motivated and their focus has all been on the same thing. Guys are getting used to their roles now, and its amazing how fast Ramon Sessions got acclimated to his. Maybe its just because Im used to the triangle taking time for new guys. Whatever the case may be, this improvement is unreal.

Rrrrramon knows to penetrate and just blow by his opponents taking them to the hole he knows that, or drive & dish or spot up & and knock down a j when he knows it's needed coz rrrrramon knows the Lakers like a book and in barnes & knowble we trust!